Everyone has heard at least a bit about
Fairyland. And like almost everything else
about The Good People, the stories we are
told are full of contradictions. The problem
seems to be that all the reports are from human
witnesses who sometimes see Fairyland through
ordinary eyes and other times through the eyes
of magic.
The first thing that must be said about Fairyland
is that it is very hard to tell, from all the
information that we have, if it is another
place, or whether it is right here but invisible
to most people most of the time.
We hear often of a person wandering in the
night who happens upon a group of fairies
dancing (which they love to do) or riding in
the hunt, or in ceremonial procession. The
person follows them, and sees them all come to
a hill which opens up and admits them. Now,
this hill is often well-known to the witness
as an ordinary mound of earth, and it can't be
made to open up except at the fairies' command.
So we must ask ourselves, is the place that
opened up an entrance to fairy-land, or was the
person who saw it all actually "in fairyland"
from the moment he saw the fairies on the hill?
The enchanted place seems to exist in the same
spot as the real place. Is it a place, or a state
of mind?
Consider, also, that the fairies seem to be in
Fairyland all the time, whether they are in our
realm or not.
